LOCATION DETAILS: [Witness requested directions not be published online.]

NEAREST TOWN: Mesachie Lake

NEAREST ROAD: [removed]

OBSERVED: I was on my way to work early one morning. As I came around the corner I could barely make out something dark on the road ahead of me as it was beyond my headlights and just starting to turn daylight. I could tell it was moving and my first thought was that it's a bear so I stepped on it to chase it down the road. When I stepped on it, it began running down the road away from me. When my headlights started to shine up onto it, I realized that it was not a bear as it was standing upright on two legs running down the road. At first I thought it was a person but it was not wearing clothing and it was covered in dark colored hair or fur with a light colored patch across its back just below its shoulder blades maybe 3" to 4" wide and also across its behind it was light colored. It ran about 100' down the road and turned abruptly to the left, running off the edge of the road and down through the ditch and up the bank and disappeared into the bushes at full stride without tripping or stumbling. Not once did it look back at me. It seemed to want to disappear as quickly as possible.

It was too dark out for a human to see clearly enough to run off the edge of the road, through the ditch and up the bank without tripping or stumbling. Its gait while running was not the same as that of a human. As I was not of a belief that these existed, it was the furthest thing from my mind as I was totally expecting to see a bear. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it.

ALSO NOTICED: I stopped by later that day and found footprints on the bank but it was dry out and good impressions were not left as the dirt was dry and crumbly. I do have photographs of the footprints but they are not the best because of the dry conditions.

OTHER WITNESSES: None

OTHER STORIES: No

TIME AND CONDITIONS: At about 4:30a.m.The sky was clear with cloudy patches and I don't recall there being a bright moon.

ENVIRONMENT: It was on a mainline logging road at the bottom of a mountain side that consists of rock bluffs and patchy timber. The surrounding forest consists of mostly 2nd growth fir with a river and bridge just beyond the sighting location.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Blaine McMillan :

I spoke to the witness for close to 45 minutes and I found him to be very credible. His profession places him in secluded forests of Vancouver Island much of the time.

Early one morning while on route to his work site he saw what he thought was a bear on the road. Bears are numerous there -- a hazard to people travelling early in the morning. His normal course of action is to speed up and honk the horn in order to scare it off the road. As he closed the distance to the subject, the headlights revealled that the "bear" was running down the road on two legs. It continued to do so for a distance of about 100 feet before it angled off of the road and up an embankment. As it moved its arms swung in a wide arc.

He estimated it was greater than 7 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet across its back. It was covered completely in dark fur with the exception of an identifiable lighter patch below its shoulders and another one across its rump. The creature did not turn around so no facial features were observed.

He returned to the site later and found indications of tracks. The impressions were roughly 13 inches long. He noted that there was two seperate trackways, one that came out onto the road, and a second set where the subject ran off of the road.

The area is in a narrow river valley that is travelled mostly by professional woodsmen. There is a history of sasquatch sightings by the local First Nations people in the area. They call it the Mesachie Man.